After supper the players got out an old two-act play for the next evening's entertainment. They cast Hugh and Ramsey for two small roles, and for two larger ones found a young brother and sister--of Napoleon--at the mouth of the Arkansas--who would have just time to act them before leaving the boat. Supper had prevented its guests from seeing the _Votaress_ turn Giles's Bend and Rifle Point and meet another boat as glittering as she and pass Lake Saint John and Fairchild's Bend--where the river widened to three miles about Fairchild's double island. Wherefore the indulgent Gilmores, on Ramsey's pleading, elected to coach first the brother and sister--of Napoleon--letting Hugh ascend to the starlight of the roof and Ramsey follow attended once more by old Joy. She met Hugh at the foot of the pilot-house steps. "We are postponed!" she said, "you and me--I!" "Yes. Do you know for what?" "Yes, because those other two parts are so much bigger than ours, and because--I d'n' know--I believe they think I'm sleepy--ha, ha! I'm glad, for _I_ want to study this _river_, all I can, day and night. And you--must, mustn't you?" "Yes," he said, which was all he was to say in the play. Half-way up the steps she halted: "You're to be a captain on it yourself as soon as you're fit, ain't you?" "If that time ever comes." "Phew! how modest" She stared an instant, turned her back, clasped the rail, and with her forehead on her arms laughed till Hugh was weary--not necessarily long. He spoke: "Here come the _Westwood_ and the _Antelope_." "Where?" She glanced round, sprang up the steps, and soon was making room for him beside her at a larboard window behind Watson. Looking thence across the long, slim neck of Cole's Point they saw the two boats coming back westward in the upper reach of the fourteen-mile eastern loop they were running to make two miles into the north. Now the _Westwood_ passed and now the _Antelope_, their skylights glinting like fireflies through the intervening tree tops, and Watson showed how to tell them apart by night. Presently they turned north again and vanished, leaving the mighty stream to its three students. "It'll cut off this whole fourteen mile' some day," said Watson; but the other two, in their dim nook, remained silent. He knew that sort of silence. When Ramsey by and by spoke, her words were to Hugh exclusively and in undertone. "The _Quakeress_--Oh, I didn't mean----!" "That's all right," said Hugh. "The _Quakeress_----!" "Oh, I meant the _Antelope_! She'll soon be in the lead again?" "Yes." "With both those letters." "Both." "Ain't you glad I didn't mean the _Quakeress_?" "No." "Well, you're glad I didn't mean Phyllis, ain't you?" "No." "Would you really be willing to tell me about Phyllis?" "I would." "You wasn't willing--before--was you?--were you?" "No." "What's changed your mind?" "Lawd, missy!" sighed the forgotten Joy. But Ramsey insisted: "What's changed it?" "You, chiefly."